Frederick Burnaby

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Frederick Gustavus Burnaby
Abu Klea, Sudan
Allegiance United Kingdom
Service/branch British Army
Years of service1859–1885
RankColonel
Battles/warsMahdist War

Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby (3 March 1842 – 17 January 1885) was a British Army intelligence officer. Burnaby's adventurous spirit, pioneering achievements, and swashbuckling courage earned an affection in the minds of Victorian imperial idealists. As well as travelling across Europe and Central Asia, he mastered ballooning, spoke a number of foreign languages fluently, stood for parliament twice, published several books, and was admired and feted by the women of London high society. His popularity was legendary, appearing in a number of stories and tales of empire.

Early life

Vanity Fair caricature, 2 December 1876

Frederick Burnaby was born in

Edwyn Burnaby and of Louisa Cavendish-Bentinck. Fred was educated at Bedford School, Harrow, Oswestry School, where he was a contemporary of William Archibald Spooner, and in Germany. Legend has it he could carry two boys under both arms up the stairs of school house. Burnaby was a huge man for his times: 6 ft 4in tall and 20 stone when fully grown. His outsize personality and strength became the literary legend of imperial might. Lionised by the press for his outlandish expeditious adventures across Central Asia, Burnaby at 6 ft 4 ins tall with broad shoulders was a giant amongst men, symbolic of a Victorian celebrity, feted in London society.[2]

He entered the Royal Horse Guards in 1859. Finding no chance for active service, his spirit of adventure sought outlets in balloon ascents and in travels through Spain and Russia with his firm friend, George Radford. In the summer of 1874 he accompanied the Carlist forces in Spain as correspondent for The Times, but before the end of the war he was transferred to Africa to report on Gordon's expedition to the Sudan. This took Burnaby as far as Khartoum.[1]

Military adventures

Returning to England in March 1875, he formulated his plans for a journey on horseback to the Khanate of Khiva through Russian Asia, which had just been closed to travellers. War had broken out between the Russian army and the Turcoman tribesmen of the desert. He planned to visit St. Petersburg to meet Count Milyutin, the Minister of War to the Tsar. Travelling at his own expense carrying an 85 lb pack, he departed London Victoria station on 30 November 1875. The Russians announced they would protect the soldier along the route, but to all intents and purposes this proved impossible. The accomplishment of this task, in the winter of 1875–1876, with the aim of reciprocity for India and the Tsarist State, was described in his book A Ride to Khiva, and brought him immediate fame. The city of Merv was inaccessible, but presented a potential military flashpoint. The Russians knew that British Intelligence gathered information along the frontier. Similar expeditions had taken place under Captain George Napier (1874) and Colonel Charles MacGregor (1875). By Christmas, Burnaby had arrived at Orenburg. In receipt of orders prohibiting progress into Persia from Russian-held territory, he was warned not to advance. A fluent Russian speaker, he was not coerced; arriving at a Russian garrison, the officers entertaining the former Khan of Kokand.

Hiring a servant and horses his party trudged through the snow to

Bulgarian Horrors, and a forthcoming campaign against Yakub Beg
in Kashgaria.

Portrait of Burnaby in his uniform as a captain in the Royal Horse Guards by James Tissot (1870)

On arrival back in England, March 1876, he was received by Commander-in-Chief,

Lord Curzon, and an expedition much later under the Arabist Colonel Francis Younghusband, witnessed by the genesis of a Cossack invasion.[5]

See main article: Russo-Turkish War of 1877

Burnaby (who soon afterwards became

Red Cross Committee, but had to return to England before the campaign was over.[1]

In 1879 he married Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed, who had inherited her father's lands at Greystones, Ireland. The previously named Hawkins-Whitshed estate at Greystones is known as The Burnaby to this day.[6] At this point began his active interest in politics, and in 1880 he unsuccessfully contested Birmingham in the Tory-Democrat interest, which was followed by a second attempt in 1885.[1]

On 23 March 1882 he crossed the English Channel in a

Valentine Baker
.

Death

The aforementioned events did not deter Burnaby from a similar course when a fresh expedition started up the Nile. He was given a post by Lord Wolseley, involved first in the skirmish at El Teb, until he met his death in the hand-to-hand fighting of the Battle of Abu Klea.[1] As a gap in the lines opened up the Colonel rushed out to rescue a colleague and was wounded outside the square. Corporal Mackintosh went to his rescue driving his bayonet into the assailant. Lieutenant-Colonel Lord Binning rushed out to give him some water, twice. On the last occasion he came across a private crying, holding the dying man's head. He had been struck again by a Mahdist spear through the neck and throat. The young soldier was tearful because Burnaby was revered as one of the great Victorian heroes. A courageous man of charm and supreme self-sacrifice, who was admired and respected in equal measure. Lord Binning recalled "that in our little force his death caused a feeling akin to consternation. In my own detachment many of the men sat down and cried".[8] Private Steele who went to help him won the Distinguished Conduct Medal.[9] There are two memorials erected to his memory in Holy Trinity Garrison and Parish Church in Windsor, the first by the officers and men of the Royal Horse Guards and the second, a privately funded memorial from Edward, Prince of Wales.

Cultural references

Vitaï Lampada" is often quoted as referring to Burnaby's death at Abu Klea; "The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel's dead...", (although it was a Gardner machine gun which jammed).[10] It was, perhaps, because of an impromptu order by Burnaby (who, as a supernumerary, had no official capacity in the battle) that the Dervishes managed to get inside the square. Yet the song "Colonel Burnaby" was written in his honour and his portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.[11]
There are two contradictory accounts:

  1. The report in The Times, says that Burnaby fell while re-forming a broken British square, this being one of only two recorded cases of a British square breaking in the 19th century.[12]
  2. Another account says that the square did not break, but men were ordered to pull aside temporarily to let the Gardner gun and then the Heavy Camel Corps get out and attack the enemy. Some Dervishes got inside before the gap closed, but the back ranks of the square faced-about and made an end of the intruders.

Burnaby's Ride to Khiva appears in Joseph Conrad's 1898 short story, "Youth," when the young Marlow recounts how he "read for the first time Sartor Resartus and Burnaby's Ride to Khiva," preferring "the soldier to the philosopher at the time."[13]

Burnaby appears as a balloonist in Julian Barnes's memoir Levels of Life (2014), where he is portrayed as having a (fictional) love affair with Sarah Bernhardt.

It has been suggested that Burnaby may have been (in part) an inspiration for the creation of George MacDonald Fraser's fictional anti-hero Harry Flashman.[14]

Works

  • Practical Instruction of Staff Officers in Foreign Armies, published 1872
  • A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia (1876)
    ISBN 1590480198
  • On Horseback Through Asia Minor (1877)
    ISBN 1590480317

(both with an introduction by Peter Hopkirk)

  • A Ride across the Channel, published 1882
  • Our Radicals: a tale of love and politics, published 1886
Journals
Letters
  • edited by Dr. John W. Hawkins, Fred: The Collected Letters and Speeches of Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby. Vol. 1 1842-1878 (Helion & Co., 2013)
  • ed. Dr. John W. Hawkins, Fred: The Collected Letters and Speeches of Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby. Vol. 2 1878-1885 (Helion & Co., 2014)

Legacy

Memorial obelisk in churchyard of St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham

A tall Portland stone obelisk in the churchyard of St Philip's Cathedral, Birmingham commemorates his life. Besides Burnaby's bust, in relief, it carries only the word "Burnaby", and the dated place names "Khiva 1875" and "Abu Klea 1885". The obelisk was unveiled by Lord Charles Beresford on 13 November 1885.[15]

There is a memorial window to Burnaby at St Peter's Church, Bedford.[16] There is also a public house, The Burnaby Arms, located in the Black Tom area of Bedford. The organ at Oswestry School Chapel was given in his memory.[17]

William Kinnard, who was instrumental in acquiring a post office for a tiny settlement at the base of Morgan's Point on Lake Erie's North Shore in Ontario, Canada, "suggested the name Burnaby" for the settlement after an article he had read in The Globe newspaper about a Colonel who had been killed in the Egyptian War.[18]

Notes

  1. ^ a Turcoman tent.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Chisholm 1911.
  2. ^ White-Spunner, p.400-408
  3. ^ Fred Burnaby, On Horseback Through Asia Minor, (London 1877)
  4. ^ Hopkirk, The Great Game, p.379, 388
  5. ^ Hopkirk, The Great Game, p.455, 524
  6. ^ Raughter, Rosemary (6 October 2016). "Elizabeth Hawkins-Whitshed of Killincarrick". Our Wicklow Heritage. Wicklow Heritage Forum. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  7. ^ "Colonel Burnaby". The Cornishman. Vol. 194, no. 184. 30 March 1882. p. 7.
  8. ^ Letter of 27 April 1885, to c/o Major Lord Arthur Somerset, who commanded The Blues, HCM, AB 2659
  9. ^ White-Spunner, p.405
  10. ^ "The Battle of Abu Klea of the Sudan Campaign 1885". Britishbattles.com. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
  11. ^ The life of Colonel Fred Burnaby by Charles P. Corning
  12. ^ White-Spunner, p.400-408
  13. ^ Conrad, Joseph. Great Short Works of Joseph Conrad. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Page 182.
  14. ^ Williams, Clive. "Tall tales but true, the hero behind the portrait". [1]. CBR City News, 12 August 2022
  15. ISBN 1871647673
    .
  16. ^ "Bedford digitisation people Burnaby Window". bedfordshire.gov.uk. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008.
  17. ISBN 978-1-909644-11-3
    .
  18. ^ "Exploring Niagara | Burnaby". www.exploringniagara.com. Retrieved 7 December 2019.

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Frederick Gustavus Burnaby.

Secondary sources

External links
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